Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was.

Big Cherry Holler

It's been eight years since the town pharmacist and long-time spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married coal miner Jack MacChesney. With her newfound belief in love and its possibilities, Ave Maria makes a life for herself and her growing family, hoping that her fearless leap into commitment will make happiness stay. What she didn't count on was that fate, life, and the ghosts of the past would come to haunt her and, eventually, test the love she has for her husband.

Milk Glass Moon: The Big Stone Gap Trilogy, Book 3

Milk Glass Moon continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader. Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage, and of a community faced with seismic change.

Home to Big Stone Gap

Nestled in the lush Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the town of Big Stone Gap has been home for Ave Maria Mulligan Machesney and her family for generations. She's been married to her beloved Jack for nearly 20 years, raised one child and buried another, and run a business that binds her community together, all while holding her tight circle of family and friends close.

Brava, Valentine: A Novel

Adriana Trigiani’s best-selling novels, called “dazzling”* and “tiramisu for the soul,” are beloved by millions of readers around the world. From the Big Stone Gap series to Lucia, Lucia, each is a sumptuous treat as Trigiani tells hilarious and romantic stories that we want to return to again and again.

The Supreme Macaroni Company: A Novel

For over a hundred years, the Angelini Shoe Company in Greenwich Village has relied on the leather produced by Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This ancient business partnership provides the twist of fate for Valentine Roncalli to fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, a tanner with a complex past...and a secret.

Very Valentine

Meet the Roncalli and Angelini families, a vibrant cast of colorful characters who navigate tricky family dynamics with hilarity and brio, from magical Manhattan to the picturesque hills of bella Italia. Very Valentine is the first novel in a trilogy and is sure to be the new favorite of Trigiani's millions of fans around the world.

Lucia, Lucia

Lucia Sartori is the beautiful 25-year-old daughter of a traditional Italian immigrant family in 1950s Greenwich Village. She boldly becomes an apprentice for a ready-to-wear clothing designer at B. Altman's famous department store. Though she is sought after as a potential wife by the best Italian families, she works hard and remains as devoted to her career as to her family.

Rococo

Bartolomeo di Crespi is the acclaimed interior decorator of Our Lady of Fatima, New Jersey. To date, Bartolomeo has hand-selected every chandelier, sconce, and ottoman in OLOF, so when the renovation of the local church is scheduled, he assumes there is only one man for the job.

The Shoemaker's Wife: A Novel

The fateful first meeting of Enza and Ciro takes place amid the haunting majesty of the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century. Still teenagers, they are separated when Ciro is banished from his village and sent to hide in New York's Little Italy, apprenticed to a shoemaker, leaving a bereft Enza behind. But when her own family faces disaster, she, too, is forced to emigrate to America. Though destiny will reunite the star-crossed lovers, it will, just as abruptly, separate them once again....

Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers

Filled with practical, sage advice, and infused with Trigiani’s trademark warmth, love, and humor, The Wisdom of My Grandmothers introduces a pair of feisty, intelligent, and strong forces of nature whose lives embody the story of 20th-century America itself. Between them, the extraordinary Lucia and Viola lived through the century from beginning to end, surviving immigration, young widowhood, single motherhood, four wars, and the Great Depression.

The Queen of the Big Time

From the best-selling author of Lucia, Lucia comes a novel about an Italian family living in Roseto, Pennsylvania. The eldest daughter, Nella, is ambitious and determined to make a life for herself far away from the rigors of farm and factory life. But then she meets and falls in love with a handsome carefree poet, Renato Lanzara, the son of the town restaurateur.

Viola in Reel Life

Viola doesn't want to go to boarding school, but somehow she ends up at an all-girls school in South Bend, Indiana, far, far away from her home in Brooklyn, New York. Now Viola is stuck for a whole year in the sherbet-colored sweater capital of the world. Ick. There's no way Viola's going to survive the year - especially since she has to replace her best friend Andrew with three new roommates who, disturbingly, actually seem to like it there.

All the Single Ladies: A Novel

Few writers capture the complexities, pain, and joy of relationships - between friends, family members, husbands and wives, or lovers - as beloved New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank. In this charming, evocative, soul-touching novel, she once again takes us deep into the heart of the magical Lowcountry, where three amazing middle-aged women are bonded by another amazing woman's death.

Bella Fortuna

Valentina DeLuca has made hundreds of brides’ dreams come true. At Sposa Rosa - the Astoria, New York, boutique where she, her sisters, and their mother design and sew couture knock-off gowns - she can find the perfect style for even the most demanding customer. Now it’s her turn. Valentina has loved Michael Carello ever since he rescued her from a cranky shopkeeper when she was 10 years old. He’s handsome, chivalrous, and loyal, and in a few weeks she’s going to marry him - in Venice. Just when she thinks everything is falling into place, Valentina is forced to reexamine her life to see what truly makes her happy.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion: A Novel

Mrs. Sookie Poole of Point Clear, Alabama, has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to relaxing and perhaps traveling with her husband, Earle. The only thing left to contend with is her mother, the formidable Lenore Simmons Krackenberry. Lenore may be a lot of fun for other people, but is, for the most part, an overbearing presence for her daughter. Then one day, quite by accident, Sookie discovers a secret about her mother's past that knocks her for a loop and suddenly calls into question everything she ever thought she knew about herself, her family, and her future.

A Spool of Blue Thread: A Novel

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon..." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture.

Looking for Me

Beth Hoffman’s bestselling debut, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, won admirers and acclaim with its heartwarming story and cast of unforgettable characters. Now her unique flair for evocative settings and richly drawn Southern personalities shines in her compelling new novel, Looking for Me.

The Sound of Glass

It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward's husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news - Cal's family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal's reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. Charting the course of an uncertain life - and feeling guilt from her husband's tragic death - Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal's unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff.

Publisher's Summary

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave's fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, organizing a celebration for visiting celebrities, and planning the trip of a lifetime - a trip that could change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. Brimming with humor and wise notions of small-town life, Big Stone Gap is a gem of a book with a giant heart....

Absolutely. I would for my friends who love peaceful journeys, who enjoy meadering down the path to see what each day brings. This book was a pleasure.

What other book might you compare Big Stone Gap to and why?

Jan Karon's Mitford Series. They are similar in they are about small town life, the characters who live, love, laugh, and pass into and out of your life. These are the type of books that refuel me.

Which scene was your favorite?

One that made me laugh outloud was the scene at the football games Halftime activies in front of the visiting dignitaries Elizabeth Taylor and her husband, Senate hopeful, John Warner.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Yes, and I leave that to the reader/listener to decide for themselves. I don't want to give anything away.

Any additional comments?

Yes, I was very concerned with the author being the narrator. In most cases I have found that doesn't work, but I wanted this book quite a lot so I gave in. Adriana Trigiani has won me over. She is perfect for the part. She IS the book. In fact, I was so please with this book & narrator I imediately purchased the next two in the series. I would have purchased the 4th but I ran out of credits.Thank you Adriana Trigiani for an absolutely delightful stroll through Big Stone Gap, a place I'd love to live.

If you are in the mood for a mellow read this is a great book for you.

Any additional comments?

Admittedly I am a little biased about this book. My parents are from BSG and reading this one brings back childhood memories at the grandparent's house. It really is a lovely read. Not as outright gripping as some but I looked forward to every word. highly recommend!

Retired CFO, Army wife, Mom of five, Grandma of six, two sons who served in combat, love to read books that reflect my values and faith, love mysteries, historical, military stories, and books that don't waste my time . . . if it doesn't have an ending that was worth the wait, I'm not a happy camper.

There's nothing more country than mountain folk, and Big Stone Gap is all that and more. When thirty-five year old, Ava Maria, the town pharmacist, who's considered an old maid by mountain folk standards, loses her mother, her world goes into a tail spin. Everything she thought she knew changes. She's always known her mother was Italian, but when she finds a picture and letters in her mother's room, she's in shock. She doesn't even know herself anymore. I absolutely love this story . . . being a hillbilly myself and having married very young (still married 42 years later), I can easily relate to all the "goings on". The narration is spot on. I've already downloaded the next two books in the series.Can't wait to start the next one . . .

Ave Maria Mulligan lived in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Big Stone, Virginia. She had just lost her mother and had inherited a pharmacy business. She became a pharmacist and ran the store. She also inherited her mother’s house. She also got from her lawyer a copy of a letter which her mother left for her to read after her mother’s death. This letter indicated that she was not the daughter of Fred Mulligan, but of a man her mother had known in Italy before she came to America. The lawyer’s wife/secretary was a big gossip and let it be known all over town that Ave Maria was “a bastard.” This raised her ire, and she began to fight for her own rights rather than just please everyone else. In record time, she received two marriage proposals, and hosted visitors from Italy. This is really a feel-good novel. The author is the best narrator one could have found for these books, a trilogy of which this is the first. You think you’re just having a conversation with Ave Maria in your living room. I’m going right on to the next book.

Wonderful story and lovable characters. You will never forget your first visit to Big Stone Gap. What made it even more special is the author narrating the book. No one else could have captured the quirkiness like she did.

This is my first time reading/hearing any of Ms Trigiani's books. I enjoyed it a lot, but really had trouble getting into her narration at the beginning. It had a strident twang and moved too slowly. Either I got used to it or she picked up the pace a little as the book moved along.

Would you try another book from Adriana Trigiani and/or Adriana Trigiani?

I have read numerous books by Adriana Trigiani and enjoyed them immensely. This one, however, falls seriously short.

What was most disappointing about Adriana Trigiani’s story?

Compared to her other books, this is a weak story with a lot of prattling about nothing. Slow development with with flat ending.

What didn’t you like about Adriana Trigiani’s performance?

The narration was horrible. The author's gravelly voice sounds old and it was hard to picture the 36 year old protagonist in the book while listening to that voice. It is a voice that grates on you in any context. Please stick to writing from here on out.

What character would you cut from Big Stone Gap?

Probably a number of them or keep them and give them a better story.

Any additional comments?

I am not sure, but I think this is book 1 of a series. I will never know because I couldn't possible follow Ava Maria any further. I really held on by my fingernails to get through this one.

I enjoyed the story and the characters. There were some nuggets of truth and knowledge about life in it, too. It is a just sit back and enjoy some southern life sprinkled with an Italian adventure Ava Marie figures herself out.

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